Saturday, June 15, 2013

Still catching up.

5) Estes Park Wool Market. I'd been looking forward to this year's wool market pretty much ever since going to last year's, and I'd gotten Shannon and Alexis excited about it as well. So last weekend, Bandit came to visit, and on Saturday morning the four of us piled into Shannon's car and made the hour-ish drive into the mountains to Estes Park.

It was almost just as I had remembered. There were barns and tents of sheep, goats, llamas, paco-vicunas, and angora rabbits. There were livestock competitions, including a llama limbo competition. There were outdoor vendors selling lamb kebabs, fresh lemon/limeades, and cinnamon roasted almonds. (The crepe vendors from last year were not present, which made me a little sad. I'd been looking forward to those crepes.) And there was, of course, the vendor warehouse.

Bandit took a few phone pictures to try to capture the sheer scope of the vendor warehouse:

I was shopping both for myself and for others that day. Here's what I got for myself:

Tibetian Cloud Fingering, by Lotus Yarns. It's 100% Tibetian yak, and extremely soft, with a sort of subtle dull sheen. I don't know why it's called "Fingering" - it's pretty clearly a laceweight to me. I'm thinking about taking this and some of the golden beads that will inevitably be left over from Vostok, and knitting a lace shawl for Kathy.

Skaska Lace. After knitting my Nouveau Beaded Capelet with the skein of Skaska Lace I got last year, I knew I had to go back to their booth again this year. This skein didn't have a tag on it, but I'm sure it's another ~1250 yards of merino/silk. I'm thinking of knitting a Hanami with this, possibly.

And finally... this extravagance. Bandit insisted on buying something from the Skaska booth for me. He picked out this skein of - brace yourself - 1650 yards of 55% silk/45% yak. I tried to make him put it back - it was $45! - but when my back was turned, he sneakily snatched it up again and paid for it. What ever will I do with this man?

I have no idea what I could make with this. I do want to find a pattern that will use up as much of it as possible. Any suggestions?

That looks like a yarn wonderland! I'm simply green with envy. I definitely approve of your yarn choices too, each of them are super pretty! I've been wanting to knit Hanami for a while (I even have the pattern) but I cannot find the perfect colorway, I really like your choice.

It was definitely a yarn wonderland - and there were booths full of wonderful bags, garments, and tools as well. I could easily have spent several more days there. The Hanami yarn is actually a much darker blue than my camera wanted to capture - I keep thinking of it as a night-sky yarn, with tiny golden stars.

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winterlime is a twenty-something grad student who may be slightly more obsessed about fiber arts than is academically healthy. Her greatest weaknesses are kittens, loose-leaf tea, Blizzard games, and people who comment on her blog.